Our Kitchen Evolution: Part 3

To begin with, there was already a small kitchen in the basement.  Reid's granddad had some twin beds and a little game/fish kitchen for his hunting buddies.  On one wall there was an old oven (which didn't work), and a 2 bay sink and stovetop area with built in shelves that had curtains for doors on top and the bottom.  So it wasn't a huge stretch to think of putting our Southern Scratch kitchen in the basement.  And, our original "dented" oven (which worked great besides it's cosmetic defect) was already down there just waiting for a chance to get an LP line connected to it. 

We were downstairs a couple nights after the "lasagna week" and were just kind of staring at everything and thinking of where we should start.  Reid's workout equipment was down there as well as his motorcycles, some tables, and still a ton of my moving boxes.  We decided the shelves above the stovetop/sink area needed to go.  I think they were made of particle board to begin with and weren't very strong.  So we thought we'd tear down about 3 feet of them so there was just a little area above the sink left. 

Well...it kind of turned out to be what happens when you try to cut your own hair.  Just a little bit more to make things even ends up with no top shelves at all.  We just kept saying "Well, it will be better to have hooks there and hang things instead." 

The next night or so the stovetop came out along with a few more feet of built in countertop.  The wiring was shot underneath and even if we got it fixed we knew it wouldn't pass muster that close to the sink in a commercial kitchen.  Once we finished tearing everything out, only the sink and a little counterspace around it remained with the storage space underneath for cleaning supplies. 

For a few days after that I started to make a pile of things that could safely be stored in the barn until we had room for them/cleaned out the barn.  (Who knows what kind of treasures I'm going to find in five years...)  Opie & Reid hauled everything out to the barn one night and we finally looked like we were getting somewhere. 

The next project was Reid's "weight room"  It took up a quarter of the basement and was in the half we planned to use as part of kitchen storage/Southern Scratch office area.  Before we (actually just Reid-no way I can lift 80 pound dumbells. Oh how I love his country boy biceps...) could move all that we had to find a place for the two twin beds I brought to our union.  In Warm Springs I had a dormer room which fit my grandmother's two white twin beds just perfectly.  Here though we really didn't have a great place for them.  The guest bedroom had my queen bed already in it along with a desk/printer for Southern Scratch (and still more boxes). 

Somehow I made space for them in the guest bedroom and with the help of a ton of underbed storage boxes managed to hide store everything in the boxes out of sight.  I also made space in our bedroom for Reid's antique armoire and my other grandmother's Lawson (which at the beginning turned our bedroom into our "den" once we propped the laptop up with DVD's of The Beverly Hillbillies and Clint Eastwood movies.  I think for about three weeks we made no progress on the basement at which point we realized definitely could not get cable or we would never get anywhere). 

Finally we had everything we could moved out, moved over and cleaned up.  I bleached the concrete floors and shop-vac'd everything, multiple times.  Then we started painting.

It started out as kind of a fun job.  The change from cinderblocks to white changed the whole look.  It could see it being transformed from a dark basement to a white washed Grecian island abode (a la the set in Mama Mia!).  After about an hour of painting, and going over the blocks several time since the paint seemed to just soak in and disappear, I stepped back and looked at my job.  And realized I had painted maybe 3 square feet in all.  I couldn't believe how slowly it was going but I guess since the cinderblocks had never been painted before they just soaked up the paint like a sponge.

Meanwhile my mom asked about the twin beds and possibly using them in her house.  They were also redecorating and thought they would be perfect for a grandchild room.  She knew we were struggling with where to put all the furniture and I gladly told her she could come up and haul everything except our toothbrushes away if she wanted!  I was so sick of not having living SPACE.  (At one time i think I even contemplated just moving everything out to the barn and slowly allowing things back in one at a time.  I think I didn't because I was afraid we would love having nothing in the house too much and end up being uber crazy minimalists with no TV and no couch).  They also had the fridge from my Warm Springs house in the warehouse to bring to us.  I told my mom to just pretend she was doing missionary work and come on up.

So I did what every sneaky little daughter does and bought a couple 5 gallons of Kilz white primer and extra paintbrushes/rollers for their visit.  I made sure there was plenty of food on hand and by the end of the weekend Reid and my dad had finished the walls of the future kitchen.  They left the fridge with us and disappointingly only brought the rug back with them which was not the big furniture purge we had hoped for.  (But looking back probably good we didn't just up and give away everything we had to sit on or eat off of in our house). 

The following week the guys from South Star came out and ran the LP line.  With a sink, an oven and a fridge all ready to go we were almost ready to start baking.  We moved my desk back downstairs (this mammoth white thing I built in college when I got my first power drill) as well as a china cabinet (repurposed as a ribbon & gift packaging storage area) and shelves (that I built from old cabinets also repurposed as a cookbook/display containers storage area). 

After another oh-so-romantic trip to Sam's, we had a couple more stainless rolling work tables and some storage & stainless baking racks.  It was finally beginning to look like a real working kitchen!  Luckily it was just in time for our first non-family houseguests...

In part 4:  Housekeepers, humidity & hygrometers....

Grown Up Christmas Gifts & Vacuum Cleaners

This is kind of "off-topic" in the sequential kitchen development posts but I thought it was too funny.  I got an email from my parents santa last night sent to my siblings and me about ideas for Christmas gifts for us this year.  I love my family.  They make me belly laugh just like my friends do.  (So this may not seem quite as funny as it did to me!).  Anyway, here's the original email:

Santa would like to bring some surprises to the Bussey children - this is
what Santa is considering:

luggage (light weight and easy to pack like what he brought Kathryn and
Reid last year)

new mattress and box springs and/or bedding

vacuum cleaner

ski attire

do any of these ideas get you excited? Are there other items that Santa
should know about? Please help Santa by responding to this email with your
preferences

I guess you are officially a grown-up when "necessities" become exciting.  (Actually all of these items are really luxuries in most cases just kind of more utilitarian luxuries). 

And if anyone is looking to buy a vacuum cleaner, do as my mother told me and only buy a really good one.  I took her advice: I borrowed a friends and used a broom until I could go to the Oreck store and pick out my beauty.  The way I see it this is good advice on three counts:

1.) You have a lifetime guarantee and annual "tune-ups" are included so you will never have to buy another vacuum cleaner again. 


2.)  If you haven't been using your vacuum cleaner as much as you should have then you can just set it out when company comes over.  Then your company is pretty sure you are really serious about housekeeping but just got tied up cooking dinner for them or saving small children.


3.) When the luster of the new vacuum wears off and your company figures you out, then you can hire a housekeeper who will enjoy getting to use an awesome (instead of poorly crafted and powerless) vacuum cleaner and make your home look as nice as your cleaning supplies.

On that note, I'm going to go start baking cookies...and put aside some for Santa. 

What is Santa bringing to you this Christmas?

Our Kitchen Evolution: Part 2

So the very first market we baked everything in our home kitchen with the dented oven.  The first batch of cookies I made in it burned, which I think is some kind of universal law of using a new or unfamiliar oven.  I still so clearly remember that very first morning.  I was going by myself to the market because Reid was going to stay here for the yard sale (i.e. combining 2 houses into one, so pick the better one of each and sell the other sale.  Conveniently most of my stuff was still in boxes and not sold.)  I had only been down to the Washington market once the previous summer before the 4th of July party and wasn't completely sure what to expect.  I also wasn't completely sure what time it opened so I thought my 6:30 am leave time from the house was really late for a Farmer's Market.

We still had basically the same kitchen set up for the next market except by this time our new oven had arrived.  By then I knew the market didn't officially start until 9am and Reid went with me which was way more fun than being there alone.  I had more ingredients than I normally would have on hand in my own kitchen but everything still fit just fine in the pantry (which was another big clean out-repaint-repurpose back to pantry from closet project).  After the second market, Reid and I realized the big thing we were missing down there was hot coffee.  (Well, we missed not being able to sip on coffee Saturday morning so we figured everyone else must feel the same way!)

So after the second market we went on our first "Southern Scratch" shopping trip to Sam's.  As a card carrying big box club shopping member since high school (on my parent's membership) to being single with my own card (justifying it because of organic spring mix and individual portion size containers of half and half), I was super excited to finally be shopping for a kind-of-sort-of-almost real "small business."

Oh what fun was to be had. All the commercial boxes of things like 3,000 feet of aluminum foil and 1,000 count sheets of wax paper were finally something I would feasibly need for the market.  I threw some more half sheet baking pans in the cart along with a box of a hundred or more coffee cups and I think a box of 500 coffee lids.  The trip was even more fun when our joint fascination with people watching was indulged over a piece of pizza and big 32 oz. cokes analyzing (judging) the contents of shopping carts.  (Kind of hypocrital but we called it "food anthropology research" on what was really "date night" instead.) 

I tried making space for the boxes in the pantry but then it made it harder to fit all the bags of flour and half gallon of baking powder on the shelves too.  I also had pulled out extra pink tulle ribbon, glassine bags & labels leftover from our wedding to the dining room table for packaging up treats.  Pretty quickly the entire upstairs had a little Southern Scratch on it. 

So I went to Fred's and was super excited to find big plastic totes in turquoise.  Ah-ha!  These would be perfect.  I bought five of them and then ran home to label them (so organized, right?) by category of all the things we needed to bake/set-up for the market.  The boxes were labeled:

1.) Ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder, etc.)
2.) Coffee cups & lids
3.) Cake plates
4.) Gift packaging (ribbon, bags, scissors, etc.)
5.) Tablecloths, spatulas, etc.

My plan was to keep everything in the boxes stacked up neatly at the foot of the stairs and then bring them upstairs on Thursday or Friday when I started baking for the market.  Then after the market Saturday I would make sure everything was in it's right box and it would be out sight again. 

Well, remember what I said in the last post about organizing things then not following the organization system? Case in point here.  It ended up that I did manage to get things back in their boxes, but the boxes always stayed upstairs.  And the gift packaging supplies moved to our guest bedroom where I had set up a desk and my printer after another order from Nashville Wraps and Sam Flax.  And our dining room table (thank goodness for those thick mat things that go over them) was constantly overrun by flour bags and things like 3,000 foot aluminum foil rolls. 

At this point Reid put up with so much from me. (He still does).  Here he had married this girl who had said she was going to take a little while off work "to get the house set up so we could live happily ever after with home cooked meals and clean laundry" and now he is coming home to the inside of a bakery/office upstairs and his man basement covered in this girl's furniture and moving boxes.  To top it off, I'm asking him to do things like wrap brownies up individually or put pink labels on pound cakes and stay up all hours baking on Friday nights instead of him relaxing after a long week at work.  Oh, and the amazing number of dishes he has washed for me instead of going fishing.

We both knew we couldn't cook from our house forever but also knew we didn't want to take a huge risk and open up any kind of storefront until we a) knew where we were headed and b.) knew where we were headed.  Still, living inside my biggest project yet was overwhelming.  Even though the "facilities" were adequate to do the comparatively small amount of baking and cooking we were doing, it invaded our living area.  We slowly started to realize we might really be able to build up a little business if we stuck with it, but we had to find somewhere else to do our little business.

In mid July was when I think we reached our peak of craziness. 

Reid's "second mama" Angie was putting together a benefit which included selling tickets for meal plates.  We were so excited to be a part of it and get to make the plates up which included from scratch lasagna (noodles, sauce from locally grown tomatoes, etc.), salad with homemade dressing, yeast rolls and brownies.  The benefit plates were for Saturday afternoon so we planned to do a small market in the morning then head over to the benefit. 

I did the brownies and made up ranch dressing on Thursday.  Friday I started on the lasagna.  Anyone who has roasted forty or fifty pounds of tomatoes, then made sauce from them knows you are bound to get some everywhere.  And with the flour of rolling out noodles and mixing up big bowls of ricotta cheese, organic spinach and cage free eggs, we had quite an operation going on.  We set up all of our folding tables plus a baking rack (that we had traded for meals) in the kitchen with the sofa pushed back against the organ.  (Because everyone has an antique organ in their kitchen, right?)  So once the lasagnas were completely assembled we brought those, the salad fixings, and the brownies over to Lori's house close to where the benefit would end.  They would be out of town and had a great big refrigerator so we could fit all the pans, etc. in them.  (We still just had our one fridge and otherwise would have had to skip the market and just make lasagna all morning...which it's always better anyway if you let the flavors kind of ripen together first so it worked out perfectly). 

That morning we went to the market with cinnamon rolls, orange rolls, scones, cakes and other goodies we had baked in the midnight to 8am time frame from dropping off lasagna and start of time to set up for market. I left early around 10ish to head back to our house and make yeast rolls for the plates.  We had the rack still set up (tables were at the market) and all the sitting furniture pushed up against this organ save for one chair that swivvles that someone could turn and squeeze into.  The oriental rug (which never even had a chance in this house before I sent it back to my mother's house after having a year long love affair with it in my little cottage) was still rolled up against the wall too.  Laundry was left in a forlorn pile in front of the door to the laundry room.  Dishes that didn't make the Friday night cut-off to get washed were (somewhat) neatly stacked in those plastic dish bussing tubs closer to the other side of the room.   The dining table was covered in cellophane, tulle,a stack of receipts and display containers that didn't make it to the market.  If they didn't know better I'm sure a passerby would have probably called the police and reported a break-in. 

So by 12:30 I was deep in yeast dough with some dough resting, some rising, some baking and some still letting the yeast mix with warm milk and sugar first.  One thing I learned working at the donut shop in college was that you shouldn't be stingy with your floured surface when working with yeast dough. So stingy I wasn't and thus had flour covering my stainless table and the floor around my stainless table which fell off when you rolled out dough.  On one hand I felt like a half crazy housewife who had gotten herself in way too deep, but on the other hand I felt kind of like an accomplished baker who could make fifteen dozen yeast rolls at once.

Watching the clock I thought "Wow-we are really going to be able to pull this off!  After I get home and get a nap I'm going to spend the next few days getting my kitchen back to normal and maybe then we could invite some friends or neighbors over." 

Well, as if she had been somehow psychic summoned with my wish to have company over eventually, my neighbor showed up.  And not the ones from next door who had been in and out of our house and loved us anyway.  But our neighbor from a few houses down on an adjacent street who I had only met a couple times pre-wedding when she helped us do our registry in town at Bee Southern.  I heard the car pull up, realized it wasn't Reid, and froze.  Then the knock on the door.  I quickly calculated that it was too late to just duck down and hide and thought "Well, to heck with it."  I opened the door and just said "Hey, welcome to our craziness!" 

Pam re-introduced herself, gave me a hug even in my flour covered clothes and asked if I needed any help, darlin?  She had heard I was doing the benefit plates and also wanted to do a donation.  Since she just lived around the corner she came over to put in her order and just check on us.  I didn't need any help at the moment (and wasn't bold enough to put her to work washing dishes!)  so just invited her to come sit for a while, apologizing profusely for the house.  She found the only chair, made herself at home, and made me feel a million times better about the whole state of affairs going on.  She actually made me feel more comfortable in my own home and for that immediately endeared herself to me.  It was like my own mom telling me "everything would be fine and that it takes years to set up your house the way you want it."  (A month later her husband would teach me how to fry onion rings properly and endear himself to me too! Pam still gets the award for being in our house at "peak crazy time," and like our other neighbors Opie & Michelle, I think she still loves us anyway!)

Late that afternoon, across town, Reid and I ended up getting all the plates ready on time with piping hot lasagna, fresh yeast rolls and even some homegrown veggies from the market that morning with the salad.  Although we were pretty exhuasted, Reid and I kept saying to each other "We did it.  Now we know the two of us can make 120 lasagna plates from scratch.  We did it!!"  It was definitely a fun moment and great learning experience for us.  And one thing we learned was that we had to get Southern Scratch out of our kitchen/living room/dining room as soon as possible!

After getting some rest we got the kitchen cleaned up but left the furniture as it was.  On Monday we started ripping things off the wall in the basement for our new dedicated Southern Scratch kitchen...

Next:  Priming cinder blocks, August humidity & more stainless kitchen equipment...

Our Kitchen Evolution: Part One

Reid and I met on a Monday night.  He came over for a dinner party I was having two days later on a Wednesday night.  And on that Friday night he called me Kathryn Bussey...Filipiak. 

So on my first visit to Washington a month or so later I had no qualms to go ahead and get started on what we were both pretty sure was my future kitchen.  I am not the best at what they call "home maintenence" but I do love a big home project.  (I think they probably have some diagnosis for people who really like organizing things but then don't follow their system so it's still...unorganized?).  And his kitchen was a really big project.  Luckily Reid trusted me because he willingly took five trash bags to the dump of things I deemed not fit for the kitchen without even asking questions.  This included the usual like going through the fridge and pantry and tossing anything expired.  It also included a massive plastic elimination-I hate anything plastic in a kitchen.  (You shouldn't heat things up in them or use them scratched so I just use glass for any storage containers/leftovers like Pyrex or Anchorware).  And all the butter tubs and yogurt containers?  Tossed. 

I then ran all the surviving dinnerware through the dishwasher (many loads) and separated them.  After a good ShopVac on the remaining space we had made great progress.  Reid eventually finished the job after I had gone back home and it was a big step in the right direction.

A few months after that I decided to host a Fourth of July party at his house.  I ended up with a five day weekend so we had fun getting everything together for the party.  I replaced some of the things hanging above the cabinets with patriotic flair which was another improvement.  (This is also the trip when I put the first coat on the bathroom to cover up the wallpaper because as they always say "If you have a clean bathroom and clean kitchen people will forgive everything else.")  The only caveat to planning the menu for the party was that I couldn't make anything that would have to go in the oven.  Because Reid didn't have a working oven.  (He said he would just dig a hole in the ground if he needed to bake anything..you know, like squirrel.) 

Well a little while later on Labor Day weekend we got engaged and any of my kitchen/house renovating projects went on the backburner planning a wedding. 

So when Reid lifted me over the threshold into his our house, we had no oven. For the first month or so I cooked using a plug in skillet and a toaster oven.  Luckily we had gotten a great bread maker and a panini press for wedding gifts so we pretty much just ate fancy sandwiches for dinner most nights. 

We started looking at ovens as soon as I finally got everything moved in.  After a couple romantic trips to Lowe's and hours searching online we found exactly what we wanted:  5 burners, warming drawer, gas, professional level but not a huge commercial range.  We ordered it from a place in New York and I was sooo excited when it finally arrived.  Then bummed when it had a dent in it and the warming drawer didn't work.  The people told us to just start using it and they would send a replacement.

So we did.  And this was the first oven we used to bake for the very first market!  

A few weeks later, our replacement oven came.  When the delivery guys from New York dropped the new one off, they conveniently didn't take the other one.  We were ecstatic even though we were still pretty sure someone would show up at the house to get it but after seven or eight months I don't think they're coming for it...

Next stage:  Crazy upstairs kitchen and Southern Scratch in boxes...

Why I Have Four Bars of Artisan Chocolate in My Glove Compartment.

Reid always says he doesn't like sweets.  He is mostly telling the truth.  Of the breakfast goodies I bake for the market he always eats a blue cheese green onion and grit scone (which I put off to the side for him) but turns his nose up at a cinnamon roll.  He doesn't really eat ice cream (much to my dismay) and, sin of all sins here in Georgia, he prefers unsweetened tea. 

So I was really surprised when, after several months of dating, Reid got back into the car from the gas station with a Hershey's chocolate almond bar.  I'm not even sure if I knew then that he even liked chocolate so was of course really excited to find out Reid had a little bit of a fat kid inside of him too. 

Last Wednesday before Thanksgiving I had to drive to Athens to find a few organic ingredients I couldn't get in Washington.  I needed to get in and out of Earthfare quickly (dodging the other customers carrying their free range turkeys) but I also felt I needed to make the trip "worth it" for more than my few items.  Since we would be driving a little over five hours I thought I'd surprise Reid with a little chocolate sampler for the trip. 

Neither one of us eat a ton of fast food so we usually pack up little gourmet picnics for the trip.  This trip we just started out with coffee, some yogurt/granola for breakfast and of course, my secret chocolate stash.  A few hours in we did a preliminary sampling: a Black&Green organic hazelnut/currant/72% cacoa; an Escazu pumpkin seed and guajillo chile/74% cacoa;  an XOXO dark chocolate & crystallized ginger and lastly a dark chocolate coconut truffle bar whose brand I can't remember. 

We agreed the coconut truffle bar was the best on the first tasting.  On our way back we had a little bag of brown butter pecan shortbread from the treats I brought to Thanksgiving and then tried all the chocolates again along with fresh coffee at the first Starbucks we found across the Georgia line (which happened to be in a Target on Black Friday...).  From that I leaned a little toward the pumpkin/chile.  I like ginger/chocolate combo in cookies or scones but not so much straight up like the bar. 

Today I drove up to the Happy Cow Creamery for butter (delicious, big rolls of grass fed butter), milk and cream cheese.  On the way home I started to look around for a little something to eat in my car thinking I may have a Larabar left.  (We were introduced to these in Boulder and love them!).  Then I remembered the chocolate bars we had left.  (The benefit to buying weird flavors of chocolate is that a little bit really does satisfy you so they last a long time).  I gave the hazelnut/currant another try and it was perfect this go round.  

Anyway, I think when it stops raining I'm going to bring the rest of the chocolate inside.  Luckily it's nearly December and not August or we would have an odd hazelnut/guajillo/pumpkin/currant/coconut/ginger melting pot on top of the car instruction manual, insurance info, nail polish remover and the extra napkins. 

I think the next time the two of us are on the road will be during Christmas...so if anyone has some great chocolate suggestions to add to my fancy chocolate compartment collection let us know!

My Favorite Food Network Celebrity and Her All Stainless & White Kitchen Appliances.

So I just saw that Google's doodle was done by Ina Garten today.  I've strongly considered getting a TV solely for the purpose of watching Barefoot Contessa.  I know favorite Food Network celebrities can trigger hot debate, but who doesn't want to live in the Hamptons in the middle of their kitchen garden, be best friends with a chocolatier and have their friends over for lunch on their yacht every day? 

In one of the aforementioned times of inwardly debating the "TV for news and Food Network purposes" issue, I just googled Ina instead. (I'm pretty sure deep down if I didn't have a "real job" AND had a TV in the house I could very quickly own only mu-mu's, develop a serious potato chip habit and be sucked in to every daytime soap & telenovela that was on air). I ended up finding an interview with her about kitchen design.  Dreaming of someday having a dream kitchen someday, I took copious notes while thinking what a genius Ina was. (I like saying "Ina" as if we actually know each other in real life.  One can dream.) Now, I have no idea where those notes are, if they survived the move, but I do remember having a ton of "ah-ha!" moments.  But when I've finally got my laptop back and am somewhere other than the middle of the country with sketchy at best internet service (but improved today by our fixed transformer box), I plan to re-watch the interview.

I have been thinking a lot lately about good, functional kitchen design both for the Southern Scratch kitchen as well as our home kitchen.  The great thing about the interview was that Ina's advice works for both a commercial kitchen where baking and cooking are going on all the time or for the home cook who wants a streamlined space to get dinner out fast. 

One of the most memorable thing she said was how she only uses stainless or white kitchen utensils and appliances.  She noted that colorful spatulas and mixing bowls may look pretty but if you have twenty different colored items, it can make a working kitchen (i.e. when you're getting ready for a dinner party) look cluttered and messy.  If you stick with one color (and you can find nearly everything in white or stainless), the room automatically looks "put together" even if you've got a floured work surface, pots on the stove, caserolles in the oven, the mixer going and guests walking in the door.  Genius Ina.  Just genius.

I try to remember that tip whenever I'm drawn to turquoise spatulas or pink handled whisks for the Southern Scratch kitchen to go all matchy with our Waste Not Paper labels.  And while I did give in and register for lemongrass colored Fiesta for our everyday china, we got rid of any and all other plates, mugs, etc. so we still have a monochrome look in our home kitchen.  (Which is really important since the eager home renovater I am took off all our kitchen cabinet doors the day we got back from our honeymoon and haven't made good progress on getting them back up or painted like I had planned...oh sigh.)

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!  If you live in Washington, plan to come by the market Saturday morning between 8-till we sell out right behind the courthouse.  We are going to have a good little selection of our best breakfast items for anyone that wants to get out of the house before the football games start or bring your kids by to come pick out a freshly made cinnamon roll!  (We totally allow footie pajamas at the market).

Another Reason Why I Love Reid and a Weight Loss Tip All in the Same.

I realized yesterday that Reid and I had been married a grand total of eight months on Saturday.  So basically we know squat about being married.  And really, we know squat about each other too.  In that time though we have both learned to enjoy the little quirks each of us have that we didn't notice when we were all love-struck, thinking "let's get married and live out a John Prine song." 

Today I had made up a bunch of brown butter pecan shortbread for gift box orders and like a good wife, saved some extra cookies for Reid.  After I told him they were his, he took a little nibble then said "Oh wait, these need coffee."  So we made a pot of fresh coffee (roasted less than a week ago from 1000 Faces in Athens) just so he could have the "perfect pairing" with the shortbread. 

You would be right if you thought the above was a boring little anecdote.  But what I loved was that Reid had the patience and appreciation to enjoy his shortbread to the fullest.  As he was eating them, all nestled in his chair, he said again how great the two went together. (Our eyes met and this shared passion for really good food just made my little newlywed heart all a-flutter.  Oh, what a sophisticated man I married, ripped blue jeans, threadbare t-shirt and discussing the nuances he could taste in non-overroasted coffee.  Rwroarr...).

But on a more practical and less lovey-dovey note, the weight management/enjoying life without counting calories aspects were there too.  How many people mindlessly eat store bought cookies?  Or mindlessly eat even really good cookies without truly enjoying them?    Reid wasn't "dieting" but he avoided eating five or six cookies standing up in the kitchen without mentally "registering" them and instead had two small ones sitting down with coffee which he ended up calling dinner because he had enjoyed it so much. 

I think having a deep appreciation of food may be the cornerstone of maintaining a healthy weight and building a good relationship with food where it nourishes you physically, emotionally and mentally yet doesn't abuse your feelings, invade all your thoughts or harm your body.  I am not a fan of any kind of diet advice during the holidays (or diets ever actually) but Thanksgiving is a great time to practice the art of savoring food for all it's worth.  Not the "how much food can I get away with eating this year?" but "how amazing is this homemade butter crust?"  Take the time to really taste your family's good food Thursday instead of just chewing your food.  

And when it comes time for dessert, definitely make a fresh pot of coffee.